The Course of True Love
by Neva
Summary: Three conversation pieces set after Mainstream Lance and Kitty, Jean and Scott, Kurt and Amanda. True love is one thing happilyeverafter is quite another...
1. Give Me a Reason

A/N: This started out as one fic inspired by the end of "Mainstream." However, it appears that my muse is a hopeless romantic at heart, so it turns out there are going to be three stories, one for each established Evolution couple.

Disclaimer: The Evo characters belong to Kids WB. The chapter titles are from songs by The Corrs.

They had been calling for her almost as soon as everyone had arrived home and silently gone their separate ways. Ororo, Jean, Xavier. Even Kurt had tried to talk to her before she went down the hall to her own room. Her response to each had been something to the effect of, "Leave me alone." Now she was curled up in bed, closing her eyes to keep the tears in. It didn't work. She kept seeing his face in the darkness.

Strutting around the school like he and his friends owned the place, treating the normal kids like crap.

Standing with Jean's rotten ex-boyfriend.

Reactivating a rivalry that had begun as soon as he and Scott started going to school together.

Screaming in her face. Sending the ground under her feet into seismic spasms. As if they were back to being enemies, as if nothing had changed. All those months that they had spent getting closer.and closerand closer. Had they really meant nothing to him? _Not a single thing?_

  
The door opened, spilling light into the darkened room. "Go away!"

"Okay, fine. I can just sleep someplace else tonight."

She raised her face. "Sorry." She could hear footsteps crossing the room, and then, perhaps the most shocking thing about this evening, the springs squeaking on her own bed. What was Rogue doing? She had always hated Lance. _Like I should, too, now. Fool me twice, shame on me._

  
"You all right?"

"Yeah," Kitty said, a little more harshly than she meant to.

"Sit up."

Kitty did. Rogue's pale face looked paler in the dim light. "I said I was okay."

"You don't look okay. You don't sound okay."

"I don't want to hear any I-told-you-so's. I know I was, like, a total idiot for thinking he'd changed." The next six words spilled from her mouth before she could hold them back. "Do you guys think so, too?"

"We were fooled ourselves. And we wanted you to be happy. I _lived_ with Lance. And later, I soaked up part of him while we were fighting. Remember? There was a lot of filth in there. Bad memories, almost made me feel sorry for the guy. But there were a lot of thoughts of you, too. He's wanted you since the day he first saw you." Was Kitty imagining it, or did her roommate almost sound wistful?

"What about when he came to join us? I mean, you didn't exactly make him feel welcome."

"I thought his feelings for you were making him do dumb things, sure. But I didn't doubt that he had them."

"He's got a funny way of showing it," Kitty muttered.

"And I'm not saying you should forgive him, either. I'm only telling you what I know."

The cordless phone on the nightstand shrilled once, twice. "Bet it's him," Kitty said. "I'm not here."

Rogue had picked the phone up. "Xavier Institute." She made a face. "Speak of the devil." Pause. She glanced over at Kitty, who was mouthing, _I'm not here!_ "She's not here." Pause. "Don't you dare call me a liar, Lance Alvers." Pause. "Okay, she's here, but she doesn't want to talk to you. " Pause. "Didn't you hear me the first time? I said she _doesn't_ —" Pause. "Okay. But if you make her feel any worse" Pause. "Good. You should be so scared." She held the phone out. "You might as well. He's just going to keep calling."

Kitty accepted the phone as gingerly as if she were picking up a poisonous snake. "What?"

"Kitty?"

"I said I'd take the phone." She tried to make her voice as cool as possible. "I don't have anything to say to you. Besides, I thought I was —"

"Too good for you." His tone sounded like it had the day after the soccer game incident, his please-forgive-me voice. She would not let herself be tricked that easily again. _X-Men don't let their emotions rule them. X-Men don't let their emotions rule them. X-Men don't_ —

"I know what I said," he went on.

"Then —"

"Would you let me finish?" he snapped. "You said, 'This is the real you.'Well, you're right. It was."

"Lance, get to the point."

"But so was when we first met. And when we were at the dance together. And when we were rescuing the X-Babies. And when I tried to head you off before you could get mixed up in the fight at the mall. I'm not super-good like you, Kitty. But I'm not all evil, either. I've got a lot of different parts to me. You helped me discover the good ones, but you have to deal with the bad ones, too. Treat me like a human being."

_"As soon as you start acting like one!"_ she screamed into the phone. She could see Rogue wince. "I thought you'd, like, grown up since we first met. But then you go and attack my friends, twice."

"You didn't have to be involved. I tried to warn you the first time, and tonight it was between us and Summers."

"I couldn't just leave. I care about my friends."

"More than you care about me?" he demanded. _I walked right into that one_, she thought._  
_

"Oh, my God," she said softly, covering her eyes like that might block out his image. Not Avalanche, super-powered mutant minion, but _Lance_. Dark eyes, dark hair, smile that looked like he wasn't used to being happy. Always ready with a joke or a vote of confidence. To remind her that maybe it didn't always matter what other people thought of her. _Go away_, she willed it. _Come on, girl, be strong. Stop thinking about him. Pretend that it never existed. Pretend that it was all a lie, even if it wasn't._

  
"'Oh, my God,' what?"

"Oh, my God, this is exactly where we started. The words 'Forget them, you're with me' mean anything to you?"

Silence. "Okay, you've got me. But I've changed since then. I thought you knew that."

"I thought I knew it too. I even thought it might be for real." It was her turn to pause. "But now I've lost all chance I ever had of being accepted by them. Even if they let us back in. Which they won't. And don't say that it doesn't matter what they think of me," she cautioned. "Because it does. And don't you dare try to use your past as an excuse. I'm sorry for what happened to you, but if you're as tough as you say you are, then you can get the hell over it. Either you want to be with me, or you don't. But you can't pretend like the things you do when you're in costume don't matter when we're together. Neither of us can make that mistake again."

Now his voice was rising again. "You think that because I'll never be perfect like you, because you can't _save_ me, I don't deserve you. Is that it?"

"Lance —"

"I'm not going to walk on eggshells for the creeps at our school just to please you. I'm not going to make nice with Summers and the rest of your little cult. If that's what I have to do to get you to care about me, it's not worth it."

"I never wanted"

"Me, neither," he said. "You thought I'd changed. You're right. I changed just enough so I could actually believe that someone like you could see me for who I was. We both fooled ourselves."

She could barely get the words out. "Don't call again."

"I won't, believe me."

"Don't come near me."

Silence again, and she knew he wondering the same thing she was. _ How are we going to end this? "See you around?" "Have a nice life?" "Good riddance?"_ None of them seemed right. She could just hang up. Or he could. Then they wouldn't have to say anything at all. What he actually did say was, "I won't. Wish I could say that I wouldn't if I wanted to. But I can't help how I feel."

"You have to."

"I can't." _No_, she prayed. _Please don't say it_. But he did, anyway. "I'm sorry, Kitty. And I love you."

_No. Don't you do this to me. Do not_. She slammed down the button on the phone, tears streaming from her eyes. "I love you, too," she whispered.


	2. Hurt Before

A/N: I will do my best to be nice to Jean, particularly since I rather liked her in this episode. It was a much better demonstration of her inner strength than, say, "Walk on the Wild Side."

Jean Grey, Perfect Jean who made straight A's and won all the most coveted sports awards (that is, until the principal and most of her teammates accused her of cheating) and was considered by all to be Professor Xavier's prize pupil, had one terrible, secret shame: she could not for the life of her wake up without an alarm clock. Left to her own devices, she would have stayed wrapped up in her own bed until the Second Coming. There was something so seductive (not that she would have known seduction if she saw it) about the crisp sheets and the weight of the comforter and the heavy, apathetic state between awake and sleep.

But today, she was up at first light. Quietly, so as not to wake Rogue and Kitty (the latter had cried herself to sleep the night before; Jean herself had stayed awake wondering if it was her place to step in), she dressed and made her way outside.

It was cold and foggy, but she had no trouble making her way to the gazebo, her favorite "thinking spot." Sometimes she even did homework here. It was nice. Peaceful. She and Duncan had sat here after their first date; if memory served her correctly, they'd actually had a _conversation_. She'd believed that there was more to him than the dumb jock who just wanted to score the hot redheaded soccer player. More fool her.__

He'd never physically hurt her. If he had, despite what Rogue and the others thought, she would have ended it in a hurry. But that didn't stop her from feeling ashamed. She'd acted the part of every emotionally abused girlfriend who sobbed on the talk shows, flattered by his jealousy of any other guy who looked at her cross-eyed and taking comfort in his constant attention. And, now that it was just her, alone in her thinking place on this chilly morning, why shouldn't she admit that she had taken advantage of him as surely as he'd taken advantage of her? She'd gone out with him for essentially the same reason that she'd pushed herself so hard in class and taken on so many extracurricular activities: to take some sort of smug joy in the fact that _hey, I'm a mutant and look how well I fit in!_ Unlike Rogue and Kurt, and the Brotherhood, of course, she'd let herself be assimilated into the shiny chrome high-school world, thinking, _There's no harm in it. I'm as human as they are. I _deserve_ this.  
_

And all of that was fine, as long as she kept concentrating on the fact that she was different and they accepted her which was technically true. But she hadn't let herself remember the tiny but crucial detail: they hadn't _exactly_ known what she was. Okay, they hadn't known at all. Now they did, and now look. If you wanted to get metaphorical, she'd risen so high on wings of deceit.

Except was it really deceit or was it just showing them a different side of her than the one that the other X-Men saw? She wasn't sure. All she knew that no amount of speech-making or (if it came to that) mind-wiping was going to bring things back to how they once were.

"Morning."

She nearly fell off the bench. It was Scott, standing at the top of the steps, hands shoved into the pockets of his jeans. She hadn't given him a single thought since right after she'd broken up with Duncan. Well not a single _waking_ thought. "Hi."

He scratched his head in what she'd come to think of as the Patented Summers Nervous Gesture. "You, um, sounded great last night."

She didn't look at him. "Thanks." Things had been so tense between them since when? It couldn't have been since their first days at the Institute together, when they'd been polar-opposite partners who'd eventually become semi-close friends. Maybe it was when she'd realized that he had feelings for Rogue? No, because she couldn't remember any sort of attraction to him then. Maybe it was after the battle on Asteroid M, when she'd been forced to think about how close she had come to never seeing him again, and then with the question, What does that mean? "It won't do any good, though."

"It's my fault if it's anyone's." He pointed to the space behind her. "Can I sit?"

"Sure." He did. "How is it your fault?" she asked him. "You didn't _ask_ them to attack you."

"I shouldn't have egged them on."

"Shouldn't have _what_?" Boys were so weird sometimes.

"All the times I acted like the fearless leader in front of the Brotherhood." He held up one finger, then another. "Pretending I was better than them. Acting like they were the scum of the earth just 'cause they'd made a different choice. No wonder they hated me."

"You did make the better choice," she said firmly, but she didn't look at him.

He placed a hand on her shoulder. "Jean?"

"What?"

"Are you okay?"

Her hand moved upward to cover his before she could stop herself. "No. You?"

"Not really," he admitted. "We didn't do anything. That's what gets me. We didn't start a single fight, but we're the ones who get all of this. They think you're cheating, I'm Duncan's new punching bag, and Kurt's scared to talk to us. And because of their stupid — ass — fight-picking —" He pounded his leg for emphasis with each word. "We're not going to be able to even mix with them. I don't know if you're going to make any difference or not. But that doesn't stop me from being impressed, Jean. Really."

"Thanks." She swallowed. "I've been thinking about how I surrounded myself with normal friends, how I never hung out with you guys when we were at school. But now Sandy and Taryn" Oops, she shouldn't have mentioned Taryn's name. "They won't talk to me. Duncan called my gift a 'problem.' Principal Kelly treats me like a criminal." Now she looked at him. "But you and the others you're still here."

He grinned. Not for the first time, she wished she could see his eyes. "Where would I go?"_  
_

"I don't know." Could she smile back? _Yes_. "I guess I'm stuck with you. Scooter, I'm so sorry you had to go through all this."

"I'm sorry, too. Can I" He extended his arm, and she gratefully leaned against him. "Are you scared?"

Jean nodded against his shoulder. "You?"

"Uh-huh."

"Maybe it's easier for you. You've already lost everything, so it's easier for you now that"

With his other hand, he lifted her face toward his, smiling again, that sweet Scott-smile. "I haven't lost everything." And then she didn't feel the cold or the fear or anything, anything, except the kiss and the surrounding warmth. When they came up for air, he kept talking. "I don't know what damn it, I'm so not used to this."

"You don't have to _say_ it, silly," she whispered, rapping his head gently, still a bit shaken.

"No, I want to. Here goes. I don't know if I could have made it through everything I had to go through if you hadn't been there, Jeannie." He said all of this very fast, as if he were afraid that he'd lose his nerve and go all stiff and efficient and, well, Cyclops.

But he showed no sign of doing so, and she was glad. Because if there was one thing she'd known right from the start, it was that none of them could forget that they were human. It was what separated them from the Brotherhood, who just didn't care how people saw them. They may have been a secret, super-powered missions team, but if they wanted to be treated like people, they had to act like they were. And being able to admit to having human emotions like guilt and fear — and love — that was the first step.

Nobody had called her "Jeannie" in ages.

She had a feeling she could get used to it.

She took Scott's hand and stood up. "Come on," she said. "We'd better go face the music."


	3. No More Cry

A/N: Just caught Stuff of Villains. I wonder what it's going to be like for the Brotherhood with Pie filling the position of Fearless Leader. I was, however, glad to see Remy interact with Rogue.

Kurt approached the table where most of his friends were sitting, heads bent close, then thought better of it. Even though they had banded together to stop the Brotherhood from wreaking chaos the night before, he a pretty good idea that they were still angry about yesterday. He knew the way things worked: when they were in battle, personal quarrels had to be put aside, or else.

So he sat alone. Kids gave him uneasy looks as they walked by, wondering if his dissociation from the freaks meant that he measured up himself.

It wasn't fair, he knew. The others had been forced out of their shells by the news broadcast, and he should by rights stick by them. But the others hadn't been treated as freaks since their earliest memories. "Not all the world is like us," his foster mother had warned him. He hadn't needed to be told how lucky he was to have been found by them instead of people who would drive a stake through his heart as soon as they saw what he really looked like.

Still, when Professor Xavier had presented him with his holo-watch, Kurt had been forced to pinch himself.

As he scanned the quad, his eye fell on the beautiful dark-skinned girl who was walking toward his table, bearing a tray that held a gut-bomb hamburger with the works. He stood up and waved her over, realizing that he had been lucky in another way.

Almost too lucky.

"I didn't see you at the meeting last night," he said.

"I couldn't get out of baby-sitting," Amanda explained. She had done everything short of groveling, including trying to bribe her father, Jennifer, and both of her own closest friends. If someone would just take her half sister off her hands for this one evening, she would be eternally in their debt. Or something. But since she couldn't tell them exactly why it was so important for her to be there, she hadn't been able to make a strong enough case. "But I'm glad they decided to let you guys back in."

"Me, too."

"So why aren't you sitting with your friends?" she asked, cutting to the chase.

"Because I vould rather sit with you," he answered instantly, giving her a pretty weak imitation of his old charming grin.

Despite herself, she smiled back. "Kurt?"

He stared at his own half-eaten sandwich. "I guess zere is no fooling you. Scott and ze others are still angry at me for avoiding them."

"Guilt by association?"

"Or something."

She frowned. "So you're choosing popularity over your friends."

"No!" he said sharply. "I mean, yes! I mean, I don't know." He sighed. "I vanted to eat lunch together, Amanda."

"So did I."

"Vat I mean is, I don't vant to be interrogated like zis."

"I'm sorry, Kurt. I didn't mean to put you on the spot like that."

"Good."

"But I still don't think that you're doing the right thing."

"You don't know anything."

"So tell me."

"Okay." He lowered his voice. "I couldn't teleport until a few years ago, but I've always looked funny."

She nodded, still looking skeptical, but motioning for him to go on.

"I never knew my parents." He thought about mentioning Mystique, but decided not to go down that particular road. "The people who raised me zey vere afraid I vould be found out, so they kept a very close watch on me. I was never allowed to mix vith other people my own age. Venever I vent out into the world" He winced. "It vasn't pretty. Zat's part of the reason I was so glad for a way out."

She nodded again. "I'm sorry," she said awkwardly._  
_

"Ven ze professor found me, ven he gave me a vay of looking like everyone else, I couldn't believe it. I had a place to go when I wanted to be myself, but I could make friends vith other people, normal people. I had never had that before. And I'm not ready to give it up."

"Like _Flowers for Algernon_?" Amanda suggested.

"Flowers for who?"

"It's a book about a mentally retarded man who goes through an experiment to make him smarter. It works for a while, but no matter how hard he tries, eventually he goes back to the way he used to be. Is that how you feel?"

"Sort of." He pointed to the table where the others were sitting. "They didn't have a choice. But I vonder vat would happen if they did. I bet Jean would want to keep things the vay they used to be. At least."

"Me, too. You know what? I bet all of them do, a little bit. But they chose to stick together, anyway. Kurt?"

"Vat?"

"I'm sorry about all the things that happened to you," she said firmly. "And I know how important it is to be accepted. But you're not going to have that if you keep hiding from them. I mean, you _are_, but is that what you really want?"

Kurt shook his head. "Zis is really confusing," he said sadly.

"I know. Want to know something?"

"Please!"

She leaned closer still, her long hair falling over her shoulder. "No matter what — and I mean this — there'll always be one human who accepts the real you."

This time, the smile was genuine. "_Danke_, Amanda."

"You're welcome."

"I have a question for you."

"Anything," she assured him.

"Vat made you decide to ask me to the dance? Vhy didn't you run screaming ven you saw me zat day in the hall? Or, I don't know, tell the authorities or something? Because that's what Scott and Evan thought you were going to do."

"You're kidding," she said flatly.

"No."

"I _thought_ about it," she confessed. "I even wondered how much money the _Weekly World News_ would pay me for the story. And I was scared, I mean, I've never seen anything like you before. But I knew that the reason you walk around in disguise is so nobody _did_ do that. And besides" Now she was the one to avert her eyes.

"Besides?" he prompted.

"I liked you even before that." The words came out in a rush. "Just as much as you likedme. We talked sometimes, remember? And I saw you in class, I saw you hanging out with your friends, and I thought you were smart and hilarious and I don't know, kind of sweet. And you know what?"

"What?"

"You're still all those things. Yeah, I was scared when I saw what you really looked like, but when I asked you out, it was in spite of that, not because of it. And I wasn't nearly as scared then as I was when when I saw you on TV."

"Aren't you scared of vat people think of you if you hang around with freaks?"

"Terrified," she said.

"Zen vhy"

"Because it isn't about freaks. It's only about you."

"I'm not saying you should start walking around without your hologram on," she continued. "You'll do that when you're ready. And I think you will be. Someday. But stick with your friends. They need you." She kissed his cheek, feeling the fur underneath the smooth exterior. "Just like I do. Now go talk to them."

"Okay. Wish me luck." He stood up and, once again, walked over to the table where his friends sat. Amanda watched him point over at her, then back at them. When he was finished talking, he stood there hopefully for what seemed like an eternity, then beamed as Evan pulled aside a chair for him to sit down.

She paused to wave at her friend Lee, who was passing on the way to her locker. Lee waved back. Amanda turned back to her own lunch, unable to hide the grin on her own face. Not that it mattered.

She had a nagging feeling that the trouble was just beginning for Kurt and his friends. And by staying with him, she was automatically making herself part of it. It might mean goodbye to a normal life for her, too, and hello to a future as uncertain as the ones he and his friends would have to confront.

But wasn't that true for all humans, now? They had to adjust to this new world, too.

She hoped fervently for what she was already almost sure of: that he was worth the risk, and whatever happened to them next, she hoped and prayed that she — that _they_ — would have the strength to face it.


End file.
